How You Can Decrease Negativity and Increase Sales
Recently I was teaching a class on empathy to a group of new home sales professionals in Austin, Texas. Admittedly, empathy is not my greatest strength…. and I get the irony of me teaching this topic as I write this. That being said, we often teach what we most need to learn.
There was a student in this group that also struggles with empathy. I will call him George. George is quick to judgment and has a hot temper. As we were discussing moments in the sales process where we need empathy, he shared a story of how he got really angry with someone while he was driving.
“I was trying to pull out of a gas station on to the highway and the car in front of me just stopped. The driver’s head was down and he missed three opportunities to pull out. I was running late to my sales office so I hit the gas pedal and zoomed around the guy in front of me. Of course, I gave him a dirty look as I went by him. You know what he was doing?? He was scratching a lottery ticket. Are you serious? A lottery ticket? Dude, get out my way!”
As George retold his story, he started to slip back in to being angry. Maybe he was justified in his anger. But let me ask you the same question I asked him. Who was more negatively affected, the lottery scratching driver or George?
Obviously George.
When George finished venting I asked him what I call a “What if…” question. I said, “George, what if you found out that the man driving the car had just lost his wife to cancer and they had medical bills that were so overwhelming that a lottery ticket was the only hope he could grasp onto after spending his last few bucks on gas?”
Silence fell on the room and after a deep sigh, George said, “Man…I’m a jerk.”
I saw George a few months later and he shared that he uses the “What if” technique every time he feels himself getting angry at other people. Even though the scenario he imagines people going through probably isn’t true, it helps George from going negative.
I hope you caught that. It helps him from going negative. Not the other person, him.
When it comes to sales there is a really good chance you are going to run into people who are mean, nasty and flat out rude. Remember the “What if” technique and you will keep yourself from going negative which will give you the best chance of improving your customer’s life.
Please share how you use the “What if” technique to keep yourself from going negative with me on my Facebook page.
